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Topic: Your Finest Whipper (Read 3749 times)

I showed up one morning (3:00am), at the Red House in Keene Valley and woke up Cunningham. "Lets haul ass into Wallface and climb No Man's a Pilot."You know you've woken a real climber (as well as a lifelong goomba) when he looks at ya and says (enthusiastically) "YES".So we gear up and quite literally, in the dark, jog in the 6 mile approach.We're high on the route- I'm leading this flaring chimney, groveling around, struggling to find some gear. ANYTHING. So I'm grunting and sweating and getting tired, basically.All James can see is my fat ass wiggling around- trying to stay put in the chimney.Well I finally got spit out, and fell 20ft.Later, JC told me I Iooked like a turd getting crapped out. That's why I'll always love the guy. He's got the best descriptions.We did top out- then THRASHED through the thickest pine tree barrier I have ever faced.BTW- that route has very near the top what is called the "diving board flake". Take a walk out onto that baby for some extreme exposure. Very cool.

This one actually showed up in Climbing when they wrote up Whitesides in the mid-90s...I'd started up what looked like a mellow slab, trying to put up a 'kids and in-laws' route on Wright Wall. I am somewhat notorious for consistently grossly underestimating difficulties from the ground. After about 80' the rock steepens and I get into the sh!t. The ethic was that if you put the bolts in closer than 20' apart you were just a pansy (fortunately I finally outgrew that crap), and Shannon's belaying with the old Stone Mt. belay, i.e. if I fall he takes off into the woods to suck in rope. I'm about 15' above my top bolt, working out the sequence, climbing up, climbing down, climbing up, climbing down, and Shannon, starts to get bored and lights up a little herbal refreshment. Then I climb up a little higher, and now I can't reverse it, the feet are sliming off, the fingers uncurling, and I see what looks like a pretty good hold 4' higher, and I never dyno but I'm freaking and I just full on huck it, stick it right at the deadpoint, and give off a 'Praise Jesus' shriek.Shannon hears this, takes off into the woods, and yanks me right off.

Pappy, sounds like a story I heard once. Told to me (I thought) by someone climbing there. Maybe it's my recollection of the same piece? Anyway, here is how I remember it...The story teller is at a belay stance, top of the first pitch, enjoying the day while belaying their second. They are observing a leader, very high on the first pitch, approaching the same ledge, maybe one more move, but sketched out. The leader is looking awful, not good at all, at the very limit. He preps his belayer, saying "watch me", then lunges for a hold, not thinking he's gonna stick it. Over sends it, then as he is sliding back towards the earth, gets a positive grip on the hold. Salvation. Safety. Utter relief. A look of total happiness and joy, followed in a millisecond the look of abject fear as he feels the sickening jerk of the rope on his harness as his belayer sprints away from the base of the climb, thinking he hadn't caught that hold, and yanks him cleanly off the surface of the rock.

I've got a couple of my own, 45' inverted at Smith on rock, 40' onto a tied off screw on ice, they however, will have to wait until I have more time... no time to tell the stories the right way, right now. Love reading this stuff tho.

Not my finest but thought-changing. 1980 or abouts, been climbing a couple of seasons and had a meager rack of stoppers and hexes. I'm with my regular climbing partner at Cathedral when a local guide asks to join us while we do 007. I'm leading the pitch 2 crux, an undercling traverse to a mantle, flaming cause I can't get a solid stopper in the downward facing crack. My last piece is a ways back. My partner and the guide are chatting up a storm cuz I'm taking so long thinking about the move. I finally muster up the nerve to leave the crack and commit to the mantle. I'm stopped mid mantle by the rope not being fed out by my in-attentive belayer and off I sail. I never climbed with either again and to this day hate climbing in a party of 3 because 2 people left on a ledge will inevitablely chat and give less attention to the climber.

Pappy, sounds like a story I heard once. Told to me (I thought) by someone climbing there. Maybe it's my recollection of the same piece? Anyway, here is how I remember it...The story teller is at a belay stance, top of the first pitch, enjoying the day while belaying their second. They are observing a leader, very high on the first pitch, approaching the same ledge, maybe one more move, but sketched out. The leader is looking awful, not good at all, at the very limit. He preps his belayer, saying "watch me", then lunges for a hold, not thinking he's gonna stick it. Over sends it, then as he is sliding back towards the earth, gets a positive grip on the hold. Salvation. Safety. Utter relief. A look of total happiness and joy, followed in a millisecond the look of abject fear as he feels the sickening jerk of the rope on his harness as his belayer sprints away from the base of the climb, thinking he hadn't caught that hold, and yanks him cleanly off the surface of the rock.

Was that you?

Sounds like a mix of stories. I think I posted here at one point about the time I was on Blind Faith the first time I went to Eldorado. Roping up at the bottom these two honed women come up and huff at me, 'Do you know what this is?' and I say, 'Don't have the slightest idea.' They get all pissy and make it clear how put out they are that two dweebs they don't know are getting in over their heads in front of them on the climb they want to do. After leading P1, I'm belaying my partner on P2 when the leading lady appears pulling onto the slab just below me. She looks pretty fried, then her eyes get like saucers and she screams and slides backwards out of sight. It was quite satisfying.

The route in the story above was an FA, no one above. A white streak that was supposed to be a kids and in-laws route, instead it became 'Little White Lie' 5.10R. Like I said, I'm terrible at judging these things from the ground.

Here it goes. My finest whipper. A couple seasons ago I took a 7 footer onto a purple C3 in a seam backed up with a BD#4 on a pod. It was deliberate. Though not a big fall it was game changing. I had started climbing trad a couple years prior and the fellas I learned to place pro from are some older chaps who follow the leader must not fall ethic. I was wanting to push my limits and having not fallen on gear before I was afraid to take the plunge. So one of my other partners noticed I was struggling with this irrational fear(because good pro could be had) so he told me what to place and had me clime above...... Let go.... Whoosh. Not a big one but totally opens my eyes to the capability of properly placed gear. It also sold me on a set of BD C3s. What a fine whipper.....

xcrag_corex - I hear ya. my then-girlfriend, now-wife, was getting into leading almost 20 years ago. she was a good leader, but had that innate fear of falling on gear. we were down in Boston at Hammond Pond one day after work and she was leading the beautiful hand/finger crack on the right side of the main wall. she was near the top and I asked her if she trusted her gear. she said, of course. so I said, then make a couple of moves above your last piece and take a fall on it. we went back and forth for 10 minutes while she inspected the placement and went up, then back down, rinse repeat... finally she put in another cam just below the nut placement, moved up and stepped back. needless to say, 'cause I'm still married, the gear held and she became a lot more confident in the systems. it was a good exercise, assuming you really do place good gear...

1979 in Diedre's next to last pitch ? My memory is fuzzy cuz I haven't been on it since. Got totally pumped. Got a piece of pro in the crack, way higher than my head, and dropped the rope like 3 times trying to clip the biner. On my first try, with 2 miles of rope in my teeth, my strength vanished...I went flying for more than 20 feet and did not touch anything.

1979 in Diedre's next to last pitch ? My memory is fuzzy cuz I haven't been on it since. Got totally pumped. Got a piece of pro in the crack, way higher than my head, and dropped the rope like 3 times trying to clip the biner. On my first try, with 2 miles of rope in my teeth, my strength vanished...I went flying for more than 20 feet and did not touch anything.

Was it a perfect corner or a bulging crack system? If the former, yes, that's the next to last pitch.